Inspiring Sun

With the sun blazing my mood is at its best. The sun doesn't just give us life, but it makes us live life. Driving home from work today, I didn't feel just motivated, but invigorated and inspired. I want to throw myself into my new business, Shen Wong and be the maker of fun loving jewellery that people will come to love.

With all my researching into other jewellery businesses, trying to understand their language and the tone they use to communicate to their customers, I started to lose myself in my messaging. While research is important, I think that when it comes to writing for your business, be it in a blog or product description it is even more important to let your personality show.

My own tone can be quite silly, but I think that's ok. Once I express myself passionately in my words, it will come across as genuine to the reader. At least that is what I think now. Tomorrow I am going to rewrite all my personal and product descriptions to convey my own crazy, quirky and silly self.

Don't get me wrong, that type of language works well for the likes of Tiffanys etc. but I need to differentiate myself. Anyway, I want to have fun along my journey, and it's simply too much work trying to talk like someone else. 

If you like this post then please leave a comment. I would live to hear your thoughts. 

Just a pic of me showing off my bracelets.

by Shen Wong

Pennys Autumn/Winter 2013

While we may have only had a week or two of Summer here in Ireland, some good has come of it. With the way the weather has been going we are ready to wrap up a little more and what perfect timing it is for Pennys to launch their Autumn/Winter 2013 collection!

I am loving their new season selection of jackets. They are so simple, yet elegant. Can't wait to buy them! Once I have them in my possession, I can work on creating some new accessories to match. I think the Fuscia jacket below could particularly benefit from an arm party of bedazzling Swarovski pearls and crystal bracelets.

Once I have the jacket and jewellery to match, I will be posting up pictures.

Where I first heard it: IrishMirror.ie

Welcome and Thank You

На все мои русские читатели, добро пожаловать и спасибо!

すべての私の日本の読者には、歓迎していただきありがとうございます！

Om al mijn Nederlandse lezers, welkom en bedankt!

An alle meine deutschen Leser, herzlich willkommen und danke!

--------------------------------

I just wanted to thank all my international readers out there. It was so interesting to find out that many of my readers are from Russia, Japan, the Netherlands and Germany.

Please keep reading, and I promise that I will get better! I am attending the Dublin City Network Enterprise for Women where there will be a talk about BLOGGING! I am sure that I will learn loads. Looking forward to it.

If you understood the message above, I would love for you to leave a comment in either English, or your own language. But even if you didn't understand the messages, I would still be delighted if you left a comment, it would let me know that real people are reading this ^_^

Written by Shen Wong

Re-branding to Shen Wong

After a lot of careful consideration and discussion with friends, I have decided to re-brand my business and blog from Dublin Designer to my own name, Shen Wong. Renaming is always scary, but I think nothing shows more confidence in the products you make than putting your own name to it. I have become so proud of all my creations that I want people to know I made them.

It was a lot of work amending everything, but fortunately/unfortunately for me, I decided to do the change before anyone knew much about the business at all, so there was no audience attachment.

All my Social Media pages had to be changed. Due to ShenWong already been taken on most platforms, I had to add a little extension, but with the character limitation of Twitter, I had to keep it short, so ShenWongCo is the alias I choose.

I also had to rename my Etsy store, frustratingly, ShenWong was taken, so I had to come up with another extension. I couldn't go with ShenWongCo as Etsy is dedicated to handmade crafts, so I didn't want to sound corporate, you have to think very carefully about your audience. In the end, I settled on ShenWongJewellery as it is relevant and can improve my search rankings for 'Jewellery' (some day maybe, there is a lot of competition).

My wonderful cousin helped me create a new logo using my name. I LOVE IT! Leave a comment to let me know what you think about my re-branding or new logo. If you ever had to re-brand, I would love to hear of your experience.

Arm Party Style

Arm party is the latest accessory style now. For those of you that don't know, an arm party is basically when you wear/stack/layer several to many wrist accessories, including bangles, watches etc.

My latest series of bracelets are perfect for stacking. I discovered this by chance. As I completed each bracelet, I added them straight on my wrist to test out, making 100% sure that there are no wires sticking out (test results prove that they are perfect :) ). As I started adding more on, I realised that the more you wear, the better they looked.

Crystal and pearl bracelets are perfect for stacking, especially when using a range of bead sizes and colors.

If you intend to wear as many as I am in the photos or more, make to sure get them in slightly differing length sizes as you want them to fit from the top of your wrist down, rather than all overlapping at one point on your wrist. If your buying from me, just let me know your intentions and I will adjust the sizes accordingly.

Now you know how to get a party started on your arm, go mad! Happy accessorizing!

by Shen Wong

Phone to Match my Jewellery

With all the pearl jewellery that I am creating, it's now time to bling out a phone case to match!

Using some lovely  flat back  pearl cabochons, crystals and a big Hello Kitty styled plastic bow, I am now ready to personalize my phone case to match my personality and jewellery ^_^

How To Do It:

1. Lay out some of the decorations on the phone case to see what way you want it before you put any glue on the case. I spent about 30 minutes shuffling things around so I know what type of pattern I liked.
2. Wipe the case with a cleansing agent to properly to remove oils.
3. Mix a small amount of epoxy glue. This is the best glue as it does not dry for two hours, so you can move and push all the decorations around into place as you go, plus it dries super strong so nothing falls off.
4. Using a toothpick, spread a thin layer of glue on the bottom of the phone case, covering about 25% of the bottom part.
5. Start laying out your gems on the glue and pushing them out to the edge. Gradually add more rows and push them out till they are touching the previous row. You can then add more glue to the surface of the case as you go. DON'T spread the glue all over the case to start, as you will have a hard time avoiding it and getting your hands or dirt stuck on it in the two hour process it takes to deco the case!
6. Continue adding rows until you are half way up the case.
7. Spread some glue on the top half of the case.
8. Place the bow down, careful to not cover the camera hole.
9. Then just add gems around bow. Keep adding rows until the top and bottom half meet.
10.  You will then want to add smaller gems to any gaps you find.
11. Go around the edge, pushing the gems in, making sure everything is packed tightly together.
12. Volila! Now just go to bed and when you wake up, you have a beautiful new case waiting to be used!

TIP: I used a gem pencil to pick up each piece, much easier. 

I am delighted with the outcome. I know the bow is a bit big and impractical, but I much prefer it with than without. Makes the case far more interesting! I would have preferred the black bow to be on the right, as it is always on the right of Hello Kitty, but due to where the camera is located, I had to compromise.

I know the instructions are a bit simple, but if you have any questions, just ask.

Details of the supplier I used are below. You can even buy the gem pencil picker from them too (I don't remember the proper name of it).

My Hello Kitty Pearl Phone Case

I am not making these to sell as I would need to charge about €50 each and I am not too sure there is a market for that here. If I am wrong, please do let me know.

Got all my stuff from a very cheap supplier in Hong kong: www.etsy.com/shop/MiniatureSweet

by Shen Wong

4th of July Inspirations

With the big 4th of July American celebrations coming, I was inspired two create two pieces with the colors of the American flag. To ensure that the pieces can be worn on other occasions, I also used a range of other colors that go well. All the colors of the rainbow have been included and then some more!

Just to make them extra eye catching they are both double layered. This was a particularly time consuming collection as I added wire wrapped detail to each piece of crystal and pearl. I was up until 4 am in the morning finishing the necklace! But it was worth it.

I would love to know what you think.

by Shen Wong

The Great Gatsby Inspiration

I have gone crazy for the Ziegfield Collection from Tiffany & Co as inspired by The Great Gatsby.

Using the primary black and white colors from the collection, not to mention the stunning white pearls, I decided to create my own version using Swarovski Elements.

Laying out the materials for some ideas.

First bracelet of my Great Gatsby Collection.

Simple elegant earrings.

I will be adding these to my Etsy Shop during the weekend. Just need to get some great pictures and redo the bracelet. I think the crystal drop will look better hanging from the center of the bracelet. Thinking about how I should arrange the necklace for the collection.

Comments are always welcome, especially in my 'inspiration' posts.